by Chris Angus
“Did you turn them in?”
“Nope. Had a bonfire on the beach and cooked it. I don’t allow any illegal substance here.”
“How about alcohol?”
“Especially not. Our kids are all under the legal drinking age.”
Garrett stared out at the cultivated gardens alternating with manicured lawns and wood-chipped paths. “You should have turned the drugs over to the RCMP,” he said.
“What RCMP? Wasn’t any around till you showed up. I don’t have time to haul freight to Halifax. We generally police ourselves. Besides, RCMP mentality always assumes the worst and they would have blamed our kids for having the stuff.”
Garrett nodded. That was probably what would have happened, all right. Just like the local people blamed the kids here when anything turned up missing. Much as he’d taken a disliking to Lloyd, he couldn’t fault what he was doing here.
Lloyd looked at the picture again. “Say, isn’t that the boat the papers said had several dead children on it?”
“The very one.”
“Sick bastards. It’s people like that that make our work here necessary. A number of our kids were involved in prostitution.”
“In Halifax?”
“Based there. Escort services in the city deliver anywhere in the province, just like pizza.”
“I’d like to talk to the girls who were in the profession,” said Garrett.
Lloyd tightened. “I’m not sure I can allow that. They’re trying to forget all about those times. It’s not easy for them.”
“I’m sure it isn’t. But given what they’ve been through, I doubt a few questions are going to upset them. And it might give us a lead that could help save other girls from getting sucked into the business.”
Garrett watched as Lloyd tried to think of some way to refuse to help.
“Look, we need help. It won’t take long. I don’t want to have to do this through legal channels, but I will if necessary.”
Lloyd shrugged. “I’m not trying to be difficult. Uh … you have some sort of ID or something? I didn’t realize Mounties operated out of uniform.”
Garrett showed his badge. “Trying to keep our provincial presence low-key for now. Till I feel my way around. Doesn’t always pay to advertise.”
Lloyd was thoughtful for a moment. “How about I let you talk to Lila Weaver? She’s been here a while and is pretty self-contained for a fifteen-year-old. She spent two years at a service in the city—Sweet Angels Escort Service.”
Garrett nodded.
“You wait on the porch. I’ll try to catch up to them.”
He turned and jogged off. Garrett watched his taut little butt, barely concealed in the bikini briefs. The man verged on exhibitionism just being around young girls in that outfit.
He climbed onto the porch and sat in a green plastic Adirondack lawn chair. It was almost twenty minutes before Lloyd reappeared, followed mopishly by a sweating and obviously less than thrilled Lila.
“Lila, this is Mr. Barkhouse. He’s a Mountie and wants to ask you a few questions.”
Lloyd started up onto the porch, heading for another plastic chair.
“I’ll handle it from here, Lloyd,” Garrett said.
Lloyd paused abruptly at his dismissal, started to say something, thought better of it and disappeared down the path.
Garrett looked at Lila and then at Lloyd’s disappearing frame. “He ever put any clothes on?”
Lila hooted. “He’d prance around starkers if he could get away with it.” She climbed up onto the porch and leaned against the railing. “Not that he’s got anything I haven’t seen.”
Garrett looked at her world-weary eyes. Fifteen years old. It was already clear that any semblance of a normal future, falling in love, marriage, a job, and kids was going to be a very long shot for this girl. She was right. There wasn’t much she hadn’t already seen.
“You get to read any papers here?”
“What, you mean newspapers? Hell, no. They don’t let us see nothin’ from outside.” She waved a hand that took in the entire surroundings. “Looks pretty, don’t it? But it’s just a cage all the same. No bars, but if you run away, they catch you before you make it halfway to Halifax. There’s only the one highway running to town. I’ve got to stick it out here another six months. It’s nothing but a bloody reform school. They make us get up at six and do calisthenics, for Christ’s sake. Like that’s gonna prevent us from wanting some pot. Then they force us to swim—and the water’s fucking cold! Then we spend the day listening to stupid motivational speeches or working in the gardens. It’s the pits.”
He nodded. “The life you were leading was probably lots more fun.”
She sniffed. “You get used to it. One trick’s pretty much like the next. Sometimes you get one’s crazy in the head, wants stupid stuff, you know. But you learn how to deal with it.”
He considered this and said, “Lila, there was a boat found offshore the other day. It had four young girls on it, we think headed for the escort services in the city. When we stopped them, the men on board killed the girls and got away.”
Her face turned white. “Bastards,” she said softly.
“Exactly. I know you’ve been out of the scene for a while. But anything you might be able to tell me about how the services got their supply when you were there might help save other girls from going through what you did—or worse.”
She looked out at the gardens. Even though she was sweaty and tired, her stringy, blonde hair unkempt and her face flushed, Garrett could still see why a pimp would want to latch onto her. She had a button nose, small mouth, and deep, wide-set eyes. She had long, slim legs and for her age was very well developed. She would have been a good moneymaker.
“If I help you, can you get me out of here quicker?”
“I can’t make any guarantees, but I’ll look into your case and help if I can. That much is a promise.”
She nodded. “Lloyd said he told you the name of my service?”
“Sweet Angels.”
“Some hoot, huh? If we were angels, I’d sure like to see the other guys—you know, the ones live a little farther down. But that’s how they told us to market ourselves. Sweet angels who will do whatever you want.”
“Who ran the business?”
“Margaret Allen was her name. Big Margaret. She had the biggest butt I’ve ever seen. She was all right, though. Took care of us okay, long’s we did what we were told. Her old man was a different story. Hank was his name. ’Bout fifty. He had some other job and wasn’t around a whole lot of the time. He let Margaret run things, but he’d come by couple times a month to sample the merchandise. The girls hated him ’cause he liked it rough and he beat one girl half to death when she was slow to do what he told her.”
“Any idea where the girls came from?”
“We got a delivery three, four times a year. They always came by boat. We knew ’cause a lot of ’em were so seasick when they first arrived they could hardly walk. Hank cured ’em of that right quick and then they couldn’t walk because of all the screwing they did in the first coupla weeks. They threw the new girls in at the deep end, if you know what I mean. Twelve, fourteen tricks a day right off the bat. Hank called it conditioning.”
“What nationality were the girls?”
“All over the block. When I first came on, Russian girls were really big. The Slavic look, you know? Then we had a lot of spics. Just before I left, they were moving to more Asians—you know, Oriental types.”
“Can you tell me anything at all that might help me track down their sellers?”
Lila thought. “We weren’t told anything, but we girls talked among ourselves a lot. It was the only way we had to pass the time. I remember one thing. A coupla girls said they thought they’d been rescued at the end of the boat trip because there was a cop on board. But nothing happened.”
Garrett couldn’t conceal his shock. “How did they know he was a cop? Was he in uniform?”
“Not full Mountie gear. He
had the hat, though, and wore a cop belt—you know—with night stick and handcuffs. Oh, yeah, and he had a badge of some kind.”
“Did they say if he was armed?”
“Uh … I think so. At least one of the girls said something about a pistol.”
The partial uniform was strange. Maybe he was on special assignment or possibly from some other government agency. He could have been undercover, but then why have any Mountie stuff at all? Could he have been a cop undercover, pretending to be a pimp pretending to be a cop? Garrett shook his head at the idea. It made no sense.
“Okay. Anything else you can think of ?”
“Yeah—’bout a year ago, we had a large group of spic girls come in. Must have been fifteen of ’em. They told us they’d come by plane. A big private jet. I guess it was a pretty cushy deal. Lots of food on board and fancy seats. A couple of the girls even got alcohol when they were brought into a private room. ’Course they had to have sex to get it.”
“Did they say who with?”
“All they said was a coupla older guys.”
He sighed. “All right, Lila. You’ve been a big help—I mean it.”
She nodded, looking up at him with her wide eyes. “You won’t forget about trying to get me outta here?”
“I won’t forget. And Lila? They’re not spics, they’re Hispanics.”
8
ROLAND TURNED HIS PICKUP INTO his driveway and stopped just past the bait barn. The engine for the cooler ground away in a satisfyingly loud manner. He listened to it for a moment, grunting in satisfaction.
He took two repaired scallop rakes out of the truck bed and tossed them to one side. His front yard was an amalgam of trash, dilapidated boat parts, heaps of plastic buckets, rotting fish nets, two old refrigerators, and several piles of dirt, one almost twenty feet high.
The original house was a small log structure. Years ago, Roland’s father had stuck a modern two-story addition onto the back, creating a spectacularly ugly mismatch. This was Roland’s space, where he could get away from Ma and spend hours immersed in chatrooms on his computer. Though he worked with various helpers doing carpentry and taking out sport fishermen, none of the workers cared for him and left him alone the rest of the time. His sole social outlet was through his computer friends, people he would never meet.
He banged into the house and his mother called from the living room, “Did ya remember ta do the shoppin’?”
“Yeah, Ma. I got the stuff.” He unloaded the bags of groceries on a counter overflowing with dirty dishes. Rose, his mother, had always maintained a spotless home, but she’d been injured in a fall years ago. Her mobility had been greatly reduced as a result and now arthritis had set in. Her husband, Roland’s father, quickly tired of caring for her and left. Now Rose could only get about with a walker and was unable to do much housecleaning. Roland was hardly a good substitute.
She plodded slowly into the kitchen, pushing her walker. Inactivity had turned her into an enormous woman, nearly three hundred pounds. She wore a pink housecoat that billowed around her stump-like legs. A half-burned cigarette dangled from her mouth. She stopped when she saw her son.
“That awful woman banged on the door this mornin’. Screamin’ ’bout the noise. I din’t answer.” She paused to breathe heavily.
“Don’t worry ’bout it, Ma. There’s nothin’ they can do. I’m a fisherman by trade an’ I’m allowed ta keep my bait in a cooler.”
This seemed to satisfy her. She stared at the little pile of groceries. “Where’s my haddock?” she asked.
“Weren’t none, Ma. No fresh fish at all today.” He looked at her sad face. She could still pluck his heart strings with her obvious suffering. She was the only woman in his life. Always had been and always would be. When she died there would be no one on this earth who would care about him one whit. Sometimes that thought overwhelmed him to the point that he nearly cried.
He sighed heavily, then tried to smile at her. “Never guess who I ran inta, Ma. Garrett Barkhouse. He’s goin’ ta be the new RCMP officer in the area. I tol’ him ta drop by ’n see ya.”
Rose had no friends either. Her only visitors were Roland’s cousin, Hank, his wife, and two kids who stopped by once a month. The truth was she didn’t much like the visits. The kids were unruly and destructive. She and Roland had developed a system over the years. They each had their space, she in her La-Z-Boy surrounded by piles of craft supplies. She made knick-knacks and table mats for sale to tourists. Roland spent his time upstairs in the back room with his computer.
That was their life.
“Garrett? Yeah, I ’member him. A’w’ys used ta pick on ya when ya was little.”
He winced. He and Garrett had tussled once or twice when they were in high school. He’d hated Gar because everything always seemed to work out for him. He got good grades, was a good athlete and as for the girls … well … they just went for him. It used to drive Roland crazy. Still, Gar had always tried to be neutral to his neighbor. When they clashed, it was because Roland brought it on, almost in spite of himself. He actually appreciated what he’d heard from others, that Gar never said anything bad about him behind his back.
“Aw—that was a long time ago, Ma. He don’t seem like sech a bad guy now.”
“Then you get him ta come ’roun’ here and tell those La-de-dah ar-teests next door ta leave me alone. Bad ’nough I havta listen ta their silly parties on their back deck, all their nudie, artsy friends from Halifax sunnin’ themselves nekkid.”
“Aw, Ma, you can’t see nothin’. It’s the back side o’ the house.” Roland knew because he’d tried every way he could think of to get a look without success. Once, he’d brought his boat in close as he pretended to take a wide approach around the wharf, but they all covered up when they saw what he was doing.
He slipped past his mother down the narrow hall and closed himself into his room. Sometimes, he just needed to be alone. Heck, maybe it wouldn’t be all bad once she died. He’d have the whole place to himself with no one needing constant help and errands run. Course, he wouldn’t have anything to do all day once fishing season was over.
He flipped on the computer and sat in front of the screen, stooped over as usual. Maybe today he’d meet someone new online.
9
GARRETT STOOD NEXT TO ALTON Tuttle, who leaned into the podium in the RCMP Press room as if the tiny microphone might somehow hide his bulk from the assembled reporters.
“You identify the girls yet, Commissioner?” shouted a petite, meticulously dressed woman with an insistent, shrill voice.
Tuttle had on his hangdog, I’m-the-most-maligned-man-on-earth expression that Garrett knew so well. “That’s Deputy Commissioner,” he said. “Those poor girls were no more than thirteen, obviously Chinese in origin, probably from poor peasant families. There’s no record of their fingerprints and unless …” he paused. “Until … we find who did this to them, it will be difficult to identify the victims.”
“Do you know why they were being smuggled into the country?” came another shouted question.
“We have no proof at this point, but it seems obvious they were destined for the prostitution business. We’ve noticed a trend toward younger and younger girls. The lowlifes engaged in this sort of activity appear to have decided it’s easier to train kids who have never known anything else for the task. One thing is certain. They sure weren’t brought here to be adopted by loving parents.”
The adoption of Chinese baby girls was big business in North America. It had always struck Garrett as bizarre. Chinese girls had two ways to get to the promised land of the New World: as the much-loved, adopted children of affluent Canadian and American families, or as prostitutes. There was no middle ground.
“Who’s in charge of the investigation, Commissioner?”
Tuttle waved a hand at Garrett. “One of my best men. Garrett Barkhouse. He’s also the man who found the girls and very nearly captured the perpetrators.”
Garrett winced. Th
e only thing he and Tom had captured was a face full of spray as the high-speed powerboat left them in its wake. He still felt guilty that their appearance on the scene was probably responsible for the girls’ deaths.
The reporters turned their hungry eyes on the new face, and Tuttle moved subtly away from the microphone, forcing Garrett to take his place.
“Mr. Barkhouse,” cried one reporter, “Have you traced the girls’ destination yet? Do you have any leads that point to Halifax escort services?”
“We will be following that line of inquiry. And yes, we do have some leads that I obviously can’t tell you about, as it would also inform the perpetrators.”
The piercing voice of the tiny reporter rose above the din. “The Deputy Commissioner said you nearly caught the men who did this. Was your handicap responsible for your inability to catch them?”
Garrett nearly choked. “My handicap has never interfered with my ability to do my job. Just as your voice, apparently, hasn’t interfered with yours.”
The crowd burst into laughter. It was clear the woman was not much liked by her colleagues. She gave him a venomous look.
Tuttle leaned in and said, “We’ll keep you informed of any new developments in the case. Thank you for coming.” He gave Garrett a none-too-gentle push and they exited the room as another volley of questions surged after them.
“Great job,” Tuttle growled as they moved down the hall. “You’ve given Kitty Wells every reason now to dog your ass in this case. She’s tiny, but she’s a pit bull. She’ll make you pay.”
Garrett shrugged. “She was going to do that anyway. Showing us up is how they get the most out of the story.”
“So,” Tuttle said, pausing for emphasis, “do you have any leads?”
“There’s one or two things I’m going to look into here in the city.”
“All right. Look into them. I don’t want to know what they are for now. Gives me plausible deniability—like Nixon.” He stopped in front of his office and met Garrett’s eyes. “But you better get something fast.”
“Fast isn’t going to happen, Alton. Even when we had those SOBs in our sights, we couldn’t catch them because they had outspent us on hardware. We get tips all the time, but they don’t do any good. Somehow we’ve got to catch them in the act. Short of calling out the Canadian Navy for every anonymous phone call, that’s not likely to happen. We’ve got to figure out how to sneak up on these fishing boats. That’s hard to do in a Coast Guard cutter.”
